Perfect World Entertainment surpasses market expectations

@Fabius Bile

You've never read *any* of Beau Hindman's pieces here have you? :O

@Fabius Bile I have a friend who swears by Perfect World (no, he is not Beau Hindman). He told me that he will never pay for a subscription MMO again because of how good he thinks Perfect World is.

@pcgneurotic

Beau is a idealist, and most his writing is opinion, not supported by facts. There limited success with F2P with limited growth. If you compare F2P games with main stream games with subscriptions there no contest. Any overtaking success is a myth, players don't trust F2P; there cheap, poorly supported, and slow at expanding.

P.S. if you think Free Realms is a example of success, your deluded by a clear case of fraudulent information, there subscription amounts are a obivous and complete LIE.

@Fabius Bile

I realize this is just trolling but when you generalize with words like "all" you just sound silly.

And use a shift key every once in a while.

@Fabius Bile

I'm with FB on this one. Asian produced F2P MMOs typical have a few neat elements and look decent but the gameplay is varying degrees of OMGWTFGRIND. I'll pass, thanks.

P.S. I am looking forward to a western made Asian themed MMO ala Legend of the 5 rings or some such...that would kick much butt.

@(Unverified) I don't get it. You're claiming I have no facts, in the comments section of a news story that lists some of the very type of facts that I have been using for years.

I can also list you facts about profits with Nexon, Jagex or F2P games in general. In fact, we have reported here on Massively several times about the profitability of F2P.


Beau

@Fabius Bile

I don't get it. You think F2P's are trash. At the same time you think P2P games like RIFT are trash. So which is it?

@Utakata

Well, technically, one is allowed to believe that everything is trash.

@Utakata so If I dont like Ford, my only two options are to like Hyundai, or hate all cars?
Rift is unoriginal, more of the same. That said, its a QUALITY game that looks good, plays well, and has a decent support. P2P companies work their ass off to make games that people want to pay for.

F2P companies only think ways to make you and your money depart, and more often than not that ways involve making your experience as painfully unfun as possible till you open your wallet. They do NOT add features to make the game better for you so you want to pay, they work to add features that make the game worse for you unless you pay.

the difference is massive. Its pure dishonesty.

I have always thought of F2P games like free buffets.
You can go anytime, and eat stale bread while a waiter insults you. for as long as you want. you want something better than stale bread? pay. you want the waiter to get the F off? pay. you want a chair and table? pay.

and after opening your wallet, you find yourself in that free buffet eating a burger, finally in peace. but that hamburger and peace is costing you more than a tasty 2 course meal in an average restaurant that doesnt give you stale bread for free...

its when you compare features 1 by 1 that see the finest P2P game will be hilariously cheaper to play, if you were to get a similar experience from your average cash grab F2P.

@Fabius Bile

"F2P companies only think ways to make you and your money depart, "

WoW's Magic Sparkle Pony.

Lots of F2P games are quite fun at first. They get less and less fun, and more and more greedy as you progress.

Now, from reading Beau's articles, it's pretty clear that he has played an enormous number of F2P titles - and never gotten anywhere close to endgame in any of them. So it's hardly surprising that he's still a fan of the concept.

@Larry Everett
WAS, as my sources tell :)

@Fabius Bile

F2P(

@Rayko

The rest of my comment poofed ! I agree (again) with FB about F2P. People like F2P because they get to play the game before paying for it. Problem is you generally end up paying A LOT more for the game than you would have. If this is the route MMOs have to take to remain profitable so that smaller but quality MMOs can survive: then so be it; but to see people cheering on something that is going to double, triple or more the amount of money you have to spend on these games makes stare at my computer screen with my mouth agape while shaking my head.

Dr. Evil, " Scott...you just don't get it...you don't.".

@Rayko

oh and one last thing , people need to stop over using the word TROLL. A troll is NOT a person that has an unpopular opinion. A troll IS a person that is intentionally just trying to piss people off. Huge difference, and when you use words in correctly you take away their power.

@(Unverified)

Fixed the typo, thanks.

@(Unverified) Smaller companies? I do not mean to nitpick, but PWE is no indie overnight hit. I interviewed them a bit ago and they had 3000 (yes, three thousand) plus devs working on one game.

Trust me, they are large enough. And they're not alone, F2P companies are some of the largest in the world.

As far as F2P being all bad or low-quality (to the commenters above) again that only shows me that you have not taken a look outside of the sphere of your own playstyle. I would bet that anyone who says that has played less than 5 or 10 F2P games.

Beau

@Beau Hindman

Whoa there, fella! PWE may be a good company and may employ 3000 people, but they have a smaller market presence over here in the States. They are primarily a Chinese-based company with a string of hits in the East. This is no way denigrates their games nor their standards, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a normal gamer who knew who PWE was or what types of games they made. And when measured against SOE, Blizzard, or Bioware ... yeah ... PWE is small potatoes in the Western hemisphere. But good on 'em for giving folks what they want. Obviously many gamers agree that PWE provides quality entertainment!